Saturday, August 11, 2012

What's your poison?

Do you know what these two things have in common?





If you've been at our house for the last week, you would know the answer to that.  And now for my disclaimer.  If you:
A. Don't have children
B. Don't like children
C. Don't care to read about bathroom activities
D. All the above
Stop reading now and revisit the NEXT time I update this blog thang.  Thank you, Management.


Now, if you stuck with me, you are either sickly curious or just have to know what M&M's and Gummi Bears have meant to us in the last week.  Well, last Saturday we did it.  We took the plunge.  We started potty training.  Duh duh duh!  (Can I get some dramatic music, please?)  I decided potty bootcamp was our method of madness and we were jumping in with both feet.  The last two months of changing two sets of diapers - I was done with.  So I prepared slightly ahead of time and here is what we did.  Hopefully if you are entering this point or will soon these tips will help.  Obviously everyone is different but when I say in ONE day, Miss H was potty trained..its worth a shot, right?

Prep work:
I bought little girl panties!  Eeekk!  And anyone who knows me knows I HATE that word.  But in that size, its the only appropriate term and kinda adorable (she said begrudgingly).  I also had a small potty already, and got the above mentioned treats.  The morning of day one, I also took dry erase marker and wrote all over her bathroom mirror things like "Way to go!" "Yay" "You did it!" etc..and added some Elmo stickers that were potty/bathroom themed I found in a coloring book from Target.


Go Time: (Not THAT go time)
The key for us was to load her up with fluids so she would have LOTS of chances at getting it right.  Its difficult to get a kid to keep drinking on their own, so we kept snacking almost constantly that first day (after a healthy breakfast) so that she would want to keep drinking.  We also let her have juice for the first time.  I bought Naked brand juice which has no sugar in it and watered it down half/half.  Popcorn at 10 AM, sure, its a special occasion. I also blended up some fruit and a little juice and froze them into Popsicles for her to have to push more fluids.  So it took until about 11AM for all the fluids to hit and for her to really catch on to getting to the bathroom BEFORE she had to go, but from then on, she was a pro!  We kept it exciting and cheered loudly, made washing hands fun, and of course let her pick an M&M out (just one, and we didn't have the other treat at this point).  We had no accidents the rest of that day and she even went the dreaded numero dos correctly.  VERY IMPORTANT POINT:  We devoted ALL of our attention to her.  As much as possible.  When I wasn't tending to C, I was playing and interacting with her.  No one was allowed to get sucked into cleaning the kitchen, vacuuming a room, laundry, a movie or t.v.  I think she really loved having that nonstop attention and it only helped the success we had.  Day two went similarly, again slow start in the morning, but by 11, when lots of fluids hit she was doing it perfectly again.  During her nap that day I went to the store and got the Gummi Bears and a new fun soap for her to use.  Purple grape foamy soap.  This helped to re-energize her and she again had a perfect day.

Its been a week now and we've only had one or two accidents during that time.  She's successfully used the potty out at other people's homes and at restaurants as well!  No accidents while away from home at all!  She does still wear a diaper during nap and bedtime.  I made that decision because 1. I don't think she would wake up to go at this point.  2.  She has a child proof handle on her door and couldn't get out if she wanted to.  3.  I don't like the idea of putting the potty in her room, b/c we don't go to the bathroom in her room.  Only in the proper place.  I don't want that confused.

So all in all, I am thrilled!  She was ready and I'm sure even doing all this perfectly, if she wasn't ready, it wouldn't have worked.  But we are one down, one to go!  I've already told H, I trained her - its her job to train C ;)

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